


The Odds Were Never In Our Favor

by notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allydia - Freeform, Angst, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Post-Episode: s03e23 Insatiable, The Hunter and the Banshee, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:30:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1360747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl/pseuds/notyourmanicpixiedreamgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place immediately after ‘Insatiable.’ Lydia mourns the death of her best friend and looks back at all the times she should’ve taken a risk with Allison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Odds Were Never In Our Favor

          An agonizing eternity passed. Time stretched itself out and her voice was hoarse from all the screaming and crying. Stiles’ slow heartbeat reassured her that she would not be losing another friend tonight. She could not stand the idea of losing anyone ever again. The pain, the guilt, the reality of it all, it ate at her without relent. The voices were louder than ever, all clashing and fighting for her attention.

          She desperately craved Stiles’ smile, his reassurance, a hug, a badly placed joke—anything to make her forget the coldness of the Nogitsune’s eyes. She needed something to ground herself to the present. As painful as the present may be, nothing could be worse than reliving today over and over again in her head.

 

 *       *       *

 

          A shard of ice pierced Lydia’s heart when the Nogitsune touched her, leaving her cold and numb to the rest of her surroundings. His hot breath on her neck, the forceful grip on her arms that left bruises through her jacket—she knew it was happening but none of it mattered. An impending sense of doom loomed over her and left one impossible, heart-breaking thought to consume her frazzled mind.

          Allison Argent was going to die tonight.

          In that moment, she felt powerless, barely lucid yet desperately fighting to force the foreboding feeling out of existence, but her powers were growing. She could feel it spreading through her like a weed. Death had kissed her and its darkness was claiming her as its own.

          She wanted to drive a thousand miles away—no, that wasn’t nearly far enough—to insure her friend’s safety. But maybe that would be the act that pushed Allison’s death into certainty. This was new territory for her, the warning, and she wanted to curse the universe for choosing this death of all deaths to test her. Of course, she was an analyst. She knew better than to waste time shouting obscenities to forces unseen so she immediately went to work. She left clues for the others, trying to avoid the inevitable, taunting her captor in hopes of outsmarting the Fox. Lydia Martin had always been told she was an intelligent girl and this was the ultimate test.

          She struggled with every decision. Could this be what sealed their fates? If she crashed her car and wrapped it around a tree, would Allison live to see dawn or would there just be one more casualty? She could feel the Nogitsune’s gaze on her at all times and the expression on his face—it was obviously Stiles’ face but the boy she knew could never look at anyone so cruelly—almost dared her to do something stupid and ruin everything. She refused to give him the satisfaction. She needed to  change the rules. She couldn’t lose Allison. Best friend Allison. Badass hunter Allison. Protector of the innocent Allison. Beautiful, caring, strong, I’m-so-horribly-in-love-with-you Allison.

          Lydia Martin faltered for no one but when she first set eyes on Allison Argent on her first day at Beacon Hills High School, she was utterly entranced by her. Something about the girl with fire in her eyes and love traced on her smile made her want more than anything she was ever given, more than she knew she deserved. She wanted to lose herself in Allison.

          Of course, she was too concerned with her image, with protecting herself. Jackson Whittemore was the it boy of the school. To dump him for the new girl, no matter how gorgeous and funny she was, would only end badly so she lay in wait for the right time. She continued to befriend the new girl and calculate her chances.

          But the odds were never in her favor.

 

 *       *       *

 

          Even when Jackson left for London and Scott and Allison’s relationship ended, there were too many unseen possibilities that came with making a move. The revelation that Beacon Hills was home to werewolves and other mystical creatures also messed with Lydia’s focus. Everything science taught her about the order of the world was taken away from her. The summer was a dark, grieving period for the girls but Lydia tasked herself with staying productive, keeping Allison from fixating on her mother and her ex-boyfriend and keeping herself from taking any uncalculated risks.

          Every night, Lydia would visit the Argent house at six o’clock. She always arrived with something to do, always taking care to go through and searching through things that would make Allison laugh. Her friend needed the human contact. Chris Argent had fallen into his own sort of depression, disappearing on “business trips” for days on end. The Argents didn’t mean to avoid each other but they had fallen into a quiet pattern of their own lives. Allison in the forest, lost amongst the trees and arrows, and her father in his trips, away from the girl who reminded him of his wife.

          One evening Allison stumbled across a dress her mother had bought her the previous winter. It had been pushed to the back of her closet. She had never liked it and had gotten into an unnecessarily large argument over why she refused to wear it. It triggered her terribly and she later explained it as, “I knew, even as I was reacting, how ridiculous it was to be upset over something so small but it reminded me of all the stupid things I’d done rather than say ‘Mom, I love you’ or something else. She deserved to hear that so much more but I was too caught up in my own thing. I never thought that I could lose her so suddenly.”

          When Lydia arrived that night with a large carton of Ben and Jerry’s Karamel Sutra and Disney movies, she found Allison on her rooftop with a half-filled bottle in her hand. She was standing dangerously close to the edge with the mix tape Scott had given her playing softly in the background. The dress her mother had bought looked beautiful on her. It lent her a virginal appearance with its high neckline and white lace design, her waist accentuated by a velvet ribbon. It was much too somber to be worn by a teenage girl though. It was the kind of dress parents chose to bury their daughter in. Judging by the bottles of whiskey laying around her room, that might be the case if Allison took another step forward.

          “Allison! Goddammit, check yourself before you wreck yourself!” Lydia shrieked. She automatically regretted saying such a childish thing but that silly cliché was the only thing that came to mind as her best friend swayed on the edge. “We have plans. We’re going to marathon Disney movies this weekend—I even brought your favorite, _Mulan_ —and drive to San Francisco next month and engage in stupid adolescent behavior. Remember, it’s you and me against the world.”

          Allison’s eyes were glazed over, a dreamy smile on her lips—not the smile she fell in love with—and the bottle slipped from her grip. It fell quickly and shattered onto the ground. She giggled while Lydia gawked in horror. “I guess it wanted to go first.”

          “Please don’t do this. You’re stronger than this.” Her friend shot her a look of disbelief and she struggled for words. Words had always been her weapon of choice, but they escaped her now when she needed them most. “You can’t do this to your dad. What would your mother think if she could see you now?” Still she was unresponsive and Lydia was becoming desperate. “Please don’t leave me. I love you.”

          She turned around slowly. “You . . . love me?”

          “Yes,” she answered cautiously. She disliked feeling so disadvantaged, so exposed, yet if there had ever been a moment where she needed to be so blindingly honest, now would be it. Regret washed over her, but it did have the desired effect. Allison stumbled away from the edge. Lydia climbed out and met her halfway to insure that she did not fall off.

          After she helped her back inside, Allison fell onto the floor and let out another giggle. Her breath reeked of alcohol and Lydia realized that this was the first time she had seen her drunk. This was not the way she had expected this moment to be. She had predicted a party, a stupid teenage decision made in  a moment of fun and loss of inhibition, not a calculated move to off herself and numb the pain.

          “Why?” Allison inquired, bringing her out of her thoughts.

          “Why?” she parroted incredulously. How could she _not_ know why? How could anyone _not_ fall in love with Allison Argent? It felt so wrong, against nature and all of its laws, not to love someone so lovely. To deny it was agony—she would know—and to refuse her would’ve been insanity. Yet she didn’t say any of that. For the first time in a long time, Lydia Martin was absolutely speechless. She begged herself to speak, to tell this girl why she was the most lovable person who had ever lived. That her laugh was the strongest anti-depressant on the planet, her smile was carved by an angel, and her very existence was a blessing. She forced herself to speak, barely capable of explaining herself. “Because you are the only thing that makes sense in this world. Especially with all of the crazy werewolf activity going on in this town, you are the only thing that continues to be so consistent and safe and wonderful and I need you.”

          For a minute, she just looked at her. There was no expression in her brown eyes. Lydia wanted to be struck down by lightning. She regretted ever saying anything and tears were gathering in her eyes. She wanted to disappear and forget this moment. But then something unexpected happened.

          “I need you too,” Allison whispered conspiratorially, closing the gap between them. She kissed her. She tasted like whiskey and felt like sunshine. It was sloppy but Lydia didn’t care. She wanted her, all of her, at her best and her worst.

          The next morning, Allison woke up with an awful hangover and claimed not being able to recall the previous night. She quickly deduced some of what happened through the bottles of whiskey, the carefully laid out obstacles, and the meticulously locked and barricaded window. She had gotten every detail down to a tee, except the kiss. She thanked Lydia for being “such a good friend.”

          She felt her heart shatter into a million pieces. She wasn’t quite sure what she had expected from her but she knew better than that. Scientists don’t assume. They observe, they hypothesize, they are careful, they do not jump to conclusions and destroy themselves in the process.

          She smiled through the pain, a common occurrence nowadays, and made a clever comment about friends not letting friends die dressed up like Puritans. That was the last of it. Lydia locked her heart up in a box and told herself to stop loving Allison Argent.

          Of course, the odds were never in her favor.

 

 *       *       *

 

          With all of her hours with the Nogitsune, the only thing that kept her from falling into insanity was knowing that she needed to protect Allison. She could feel someone unfamiliar seeking her out but she continued to push them away, hoping they would eventually give up. She attempted to psych the Fox out, playing her part as the docile victim, lying in wait for her turn to attack.

          When the Oni arrived, she was filled with a renewed sense of hope. For a minute she truly believed that she could save Allison, she could save everyone, and put an end to this Nogitsune madness. Of course, the trickster was always one step ahead and everything she did only seem to help him further the chaos. Still she held onto the hope that she could save her.

          When Scott and the real Stiles arrived, she knew that their fates had been sealed but they ran anyway. The threesome hurried through the tunnels. They had been so close when Stiles collapsed and Scott’s footsteps became distant and distorted. She wanted to tell him to run faster but there was no point. She felt the sword pierce through her abdomen. She may not have been the one to run the blade through her, but Lydia knew that she had killed Allison. Her name rang through the tunnels and it took her several seconds to realize that she was the one screaming. She always was.

 

 *       *       *

 

          The Alpha returned with bloodshot eyes and defeated posture. He was overly protective of Stiles, just as she was. He understood that neither of them could stand to lose anyone else tonight. They both carried him out of the tunnels out into the moonlight. When Lydia saw a small group congregating in front of them, Scott gladly took the full weight of his friend and let her join them.

          Inside of the circle of people, Chris Argent cradled his daughter in his arms, silently mourning the loss of yet another member of his clan. Lydia knelt down next to him in silence, stroking Allison’s hair out of her face. Her eyes were empty orbs. There was no longer fire in them and her face was void of any emotion, especially lacking the smile she had fallen in love with.

          “It should’ve been me,” she whispered as an apology.

          Chris shook his head but accepted the offering. Though everyone here would mourn for Allison, he knew that this was the way she needed it to be. To have everyone she loved safe and sound and her blood split rather than theirs. He hated it and he wanted to hunt down the Nogitsune and make him suffer, to burn down the entire world, to share his sorrow and suffering. He hated it but he knew this was the way his warrior daughter was meant to leave this world.

          He looked to Lydia and she understood. Now was her time to say her final words, her goodbye to Allison. She leaned over and kissed her best friend for the final time.

          “The odds were never in our favor,” she whispered.


End file.
